A car full of nuns is driving on a one lane tunnel on their way back from prayer service. Hurtling toward them in that same lane is a car full of fertilized eggs on their way to a lucky family that God apparently passed over in his zest to make sure a cyclone hit myanmar to kill it’s people for being evil. These beuatiful eggs are ready to be hatched into zygotes, then fetuses then baby’s.

You just happen to be manning a state of the art missle system that will fire a tomahawk type missle that will reach mach 7 in 30 seconds and can take out either target for you. One of these vehicles MUST be eliminated or BOTH vehicles will lose their precious cargo.

I’m going to work on the assumption that this was an honest question. I’m sure I’m wrong about that, but there it is

These kind of morality exercises can be graphic and agonizing, and even distasteful. However, if you find serious consideration of the question distasteful, then it’s a sure sign that it’s a tough one.

In on car, you have living, thinking, human beings. We’ll assume that they are in good health and not old enough to have one foot in the grave, except for the missile potentially aimed at them. They are nuns, so it’s a fair guess that they have given their lives in service of doing good. If they were evil nuns, this wouldn’t be much of a morality exercise.

In the other car, you have unthinking, unfeeling eggs, still single cells. However, they are fertilized, so we can assume they would develop into people eventually. These eggs are potential. The potential to live a life, to love, to do good or evil in the time they have. We have no idea what these eggs will grow to be, except the assumption that they are human eggs. At this point, they don’t even have the capacity for will to live. This is important, and we’ll come back to it.

As the nuns are assumed to be good, you would imagine that they would elect to allow the eggs to live, even if it meant sacrificing themselves. The eggs, being as yet unthinking, would have no feeling one way or the other, but their first thoughts will be those of instinct, and therefore, survival.

However, the eggs are unaware of the situation and being unthinking, would have no real experience of the situation, even if it was they who were destroyed. There would be no suffering on the part of the eggs, and even if they were for parents who were having trouble giving birth, the suffering of the parents would not be in the same level of personal loss as losing an actual child. Killing the nuns would cause suffering on the part of the nuns, as they would vividly experience their own deaths, as would anyone who grew close to them in life. It would adversely affect the people they help, and the communities they volunteer in.

The third choice is to not fire the missile, letting both die, but not actively killing either. However, I don’t think allowing a higher death toll out of inaction is acceptable.

So, which is more moral: to avoid causing suffering, or protection of potential human life?

If I didn’t have days to agonize over it, I would launch the missile at the eggs.

In second grade, Sister Marie Perpetua Purgatoria said that it was godly to sacrifice your own life to save an innocent person. That statement legally binds all other Catholic nuns, so those penguins are toast.

but what is your answer to the question? are you that much of a coward you won’t make an attempt to answer a question that may question your ill concieved notion that certain choices are black and white….

Your wife is pregnant. She is seven months into the pregnancy. The baby (I mean fetus) is healthy and active and everything is going very well. You couldn’t be more excited; especially after finding out you are having a little boy. Five weeks before her due date she decides that this baby no longer fits into her view of the future. So, SHE CHOOSES to have this “pregnancy” terminated. In order to do this however they must partially deliver your son (I mean the fetus)…just enough so that he (I mean it) can see the world and take a few breaths of air and let out a quick cry. Then, they drill into your son’s head (I mean the fetus’s cranium) and puncture his (I mean its) brain.

Here is the question (two-parter):

Your wife is very, very scared and would like you in the room with her. A. Would you go into the room with your wife for this “procedure?” It’s not like they are killing a baby or anything. B. Would you have any problem with your wife making such a decision? (You know, would you resent her etc.) I mean, she does have the right to choose and all.

it’s funny A bundy, b/c your “hypothetical” is similar to my real life. My wife IS pregnant. We HAVE discussed terminating, killing, murdering, cutting up into a million pieces (whatever words you want to use) and if in the event that

ohhhhh wait…why am answering your question? You still have yet to EVER answer any of mine.

So pathetic.

Your question is about 7 month old BABY. MUCH different from what I have posed over the past few QOD’s. Your hypothetical is also much different from mine.

I don’t have a problem answering yours though. I don’t feel threatened having to make a choice over which “life” is more “innocent” than the other.

You, you are pathetic and much like Eduardo unable to challenge your black and white belief system.

DHB, I appreciate a tough question. I guess the shots that go back and forth are part of the cost of doing business here.

I don’t know if you have childhood nightmares involving nuns, but I sure don’t. I had many sisters teach me in grade school, and I encountered several in college (no nuns at Sallies) and my experience with them has been overwhelmingly positive. Did I like all of them? No. But I do respect what they do, which is sacrifice personally, socially and financially for a higher purpose.

Religious women made Catholic education possible in America, and they have established hospitals and charities worldwide. Very often, when the institutional church has ignored or missed the least among us, it is the nuns who have been their voice.

It is difficult to read the insults to Catholicism here and elsewhere on a near-daily basis because overall my faith has been a positive in my life. Unfortunately, the church makes itself such a large target sometimes that it is understandable why people take their shots.

My education is not the only reason I defend the sisters. I have two aunts who are Sisters of Mercy. They are two of the most generous, giving people I have ever met. I imagine they were not loved by all of their students, but I know they gave everything they had to their students, their congregation and their family.

No question here. Those nuns have earned the right to see another day.

If I put the crater in the middle, the MacGyver possibility exists that the cars will neatly stack when one goes subterranean into the crater. I’m a fan of American airbags. You also didn’t mention speeds of each vehicle. I bet you sucked at algebra!

I win for ingenuity and faith in a positive outcome. If right, the nuns win, the widdle eggs win. If I’m wrong, I made my reasoned choice and did not fail to act.